The present invention relates to an exercise device and, more particularly, to an improved exercise device that may be used with dumbbells.
The use of weights to enhance calisthenics exercise is well known. A barbell, consisting of a bar with weighted disks at each end which may be adjusted to increase or decrease the weight of the bar, is used to exercise the legs, back and shoulders of its user. Such exercises as the clean and jerk, the snatch and the press using a barbell are part of Olympic competition in which Olympic records are broken by fractions of a pound. Dumbbells are used to exercise the arm muscles and, like the larger barbell, consist of a shorter bar with two identical spheres formed on each end. The dumbbell may be made as a solid casting or with adjustable weighted disks attached to each end.
The dumbbells with adjustable weights on each end are generally sold for an individual's home use. Most commercial or club gymnasiums use either the solid cast dumbbell or a dumbbell having its weighted disks permanently attached as by welding. In gymnasiums, it is not desirable to have adjustable dumbbells, as the need to change weights four times (twice for each dumbbell) is time consuming, creates a clutter of small weighted disks about the gym, and can be dangerous if one of the four changes is not properly done causing a weight to fall off in use. Another problem with dumbbells for the average commercial or club gymnasium is that a rack of up to forty dumbbells, two each from five to one hundred pounds, is expensive and space consuming.
The average user is far below the level of Olympic competition mentioned above. An average user will use a pair of dumbbells weighing five, ten, fifteen and up to fifty pounds each, while some may use dumbbells up to one hundred or even two hundred pounds each. The heavier dumbbell weights may be used to exercise the biceps and shoulders with the elbows close to the user's side. However, when a user extends his or her arms, the amount of weight that can be lifted drops dramatically.
The average user of a dumbbell will find it difficult to conduct some arm exercises by changing from twenty to twenty-five pounds, for example. A solution to this problem is to provide an exercise device which can quickly and easily add two and one-half pounds or even less to each dumbbell, so that the user may exercise with a weight of twenty-two and one-half pounds, for example, in each hand. By providing a pair of exercise devices which may be simply and quickly added to a dumbbell pair, a user may quickly and safely increase his or her weights without creating a clutter in the gymnasium or requiring an even larger complement of weights. One such exercise device is shown in patent application Ser. No. 08/125,751, filed on Sep. 24, 1993, entitled Exercise Device, by the inventor of the present invention, David P. Carpenter, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,607, issued May 16, 1995.